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{
    "id": 824988,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/824988/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 192,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suna East, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Junet Nuh",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2840,
        "legal_name": "Junet Sheikh Nuh",
        "slug": "junet-sheikh-nuh"
    },
    "content": "The most important thing that I have seen in this Motion is the issue of friends of committees. A friend of the court is supposed to be that guy who appears at the court and claims to be a friend of the court. They call him amicus curiae. I learnt it in the first petition of 2013, when the then Attorney-General went to the court and said that he was amicus curiae . I asked who had sent the man, but I came to learn that these are people who are supposed to appear in court as friends because they have specialised skills or knowledge that they want to give. But when you appear as a friend and you are heckler…I am sorry to say so. You are just making the committee to lose dignity, integrity and decorum. I have seen in the Order Paper that there is an amendment that you should write to the Chair 24 hours before the sitting of the committee so that you can be given permission to attend as a friend of the committee. I want us to go a step further. Chairs of committees are Members of Parliament. When you want to become a friend of the committee you have to understand that the matter that you want to canvas as a friend of the committee, does not end at the committee level, it will end up coming here at the plenary where all of us are Members. If you want to deal with party matter, you have to understand there are people from your party in that committee, why are you belittling them by thinking that you are the only one who can do things they are supposed to do? I want us to amend it further and say that the permission should be sought from the Speaker and not from the chair of the committee. You should write to the Speaker 24 hours before the sitting of the committee and explain to the Speaker what special skills you have that you think you want to attend that committee sitting to inform them how things should be done. For example, if we have issues in Public Accounts Committee that relate to health matters, if Dr. Nyikal writes to the Speaker that he wants to attend the PAC meeting because there is an issue that touches on health, that is acceptable. But if Hon. Mbadi wants to come to the committee for health matters and we know he is an accountant, he only knows how to count coins, shillings and balance books of small enterprises not huge ones; he does not need to appear as a friend of the committee."
}